In all truth and honesty, I have to disregard science in many cases.

[cleverlymadeup]

To those who referenced carbon dating. There are many assumptions about that topic that many latch onto due to the lack of knowledge surrounding it. It is still a relatively new advancement within science, as as a guy who has spoken with many scientists I must say that even they agree that people try to throw in many scientific unknowns and combine it with a lack of belief in the subject.

actually carbon dating is fairly reliable and a pretty proven thing. i'd like to see your proof it's hotly debated and who these "scientists"

also as for being "relatively new advancement" it's more than 50 years old and frankly any scientific discovery could be considered "recent" just depends on how long you want to stretch out the time line.

the fact is we only discovered radiation a little over 100 years ago, so we knew nothing of the half life of anything until after that as half life is a part of radioactivity

1) The 'supposed' parallels between Christ and previously popular religious icons incude such things as the virgin birth, the resurrection, walking on water, raising people from the dead, and being born in December.

actually he never did the raising from the dead, that's a misunderstanding, the actual phrasing is "raised from amongst the dead" and this has nothing to do with the person being dead.

raising someone from amongst the dead means that you initiated someone into your group that wasn't part of your group

 

[caz105]

I firmly believe that Christianity originally started out, then all of these other beliefs sprouted from that exact religion. All the ancient Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian even, contain some reference or similarity to a tale of early Judaism and contain characters that resemble Christ down to the core, yet become tainted figures in their worship of sinful devices and pleasures.

Yeah I totally agree... NOT! So what your saying is although Christianity was formed by a Jew, Judaism was an offshoot of it? As well as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Taoism, which are completely different to Christianity but you say are formed by it? Are you being serious here?

EDIT: Also the similarities of Christianity and other religions are there when the Romans changed their state religion, they took things from their own religion in order to make the transition easier to the Roman population.











































































































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[Supreme Unleaded]

I dont really see the point of making this thread, I'm not into religeon so i didnt understand half of your points.

 

[Beatrix]

Science is the process of pursuing truth, it examines the current facts and then bases a theory on it. When new facts are discovered or proven to be different the theories are modified or replaced.

Science has nothing inherent in it that would deny religion. If there is a God up there then I'm sure he/she/it likes scientists, like the curious ants trying to discover every part of the antfarm.

In short... I don't see the point of your thread, at all.

 

[wewontdie11]

There are just so many things wrong with the OP that I can't be bothered to rant about all of them.

This...the largest flaw in your arguement is you trying to state somehow all religions came from Christianity or Judaism.../sigh

This also. I just don't even know where to start, and if I do I'll be here all day so I'm just going to assume this is flame bait and move on.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

 

[Exocet]

If I understand correctly,you choose to disregard science knowing that it's the ONLY reason you're on a computer posting on the internet.
No god created the internet,it's man-made.

Besides,I see no connection whatsoever between Thor and Jesus.One is a badass,hammer and lightning wielding drunken god,the other is a carpenter who died by getting stabbed by mere mortals.

Lastly,why trust a religion that can't even follow it's on rules.
"Thou shall not kill" my ass.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Science is the process of pursuing truth, it examines the current facts and then bases a theory on it. When new facts are discovered or proven to be different the theories are modified or replaced.

Science has nothing inherent in it that would deny religion. If there is a God up there then I'm sure he/she/it likes scientists, like the curious ants trying to discover every part of the antfarm.

In short... I don't see the point of your thread, at all.

the odd part is that religion and science used to be practiced by the exact same people. at one point in history the two diverged from one another and now religion is like the bitter ex-gf of science, there are a lot of scientists that believe in god and religion, not so much the other way around

 

[Legion]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

 

[thewerebuffalo]

OR could have borrowed ideas later on down the road despite their original sources being something else entirely different. We never know truly what has happened throughout time in certain incidents of certain stories. We can only speculate on a physical matter.

I don't understand how you can say that greek mythology or norse mythology or japanese mythology can be based on Christianity since they existed a long time before Christianity.

I fail to see how the greek gods were "tainted" as opposed to Jesus. the greek gods were more anthropomorphized that's all. and just because one religion says that their person is perfect doesn't mean that their religion is better than others. Hell, I could come with a religion that said it was the greatest and that everyone involved was a perfect human being but that wouldn't mean It was better than any other religion.

Hell, you could even say that Christianity is a tainted form of egyptian religion. the egyptians believe in resurrection and they believed in a god of the sun and knowledge. Christianity more or less just combined all the gods and got rid of their personality. that's "tainting" the original idea of polythesis.

 

[Wasurenagusa]

In all honesty. Who gives a shit?
Why give a shit?
Do people not have anything better to do than to speculate on archaic texts, doomsday propaganda, messiahs, saviours, god, reality and all that jazz?
I don't understand why people cannot just let go of the shrouded and (I'm certain about this) altered histories, and just jam for once.
Yeah, its fascinating to look back on history, but as soon as you put religious speculation on the table, and how minorities or even majorities are wrong about their beliefs, I develop and urge to impale people onto something.

 

[Indiscrimi]

Okay, reading the post that started this thread made my head hurt. I would just like to make a few statements and leave.

The Bible is a collection of fairy tales. The story of Jesus was the Egyptian story of the god Horus, written over a thousand years before. It got passed down by word of mouth from one generation of illiterates to another before some wannabe historians wrote down the bastardized version of the story that had resulted from the process.

There is no history in the Old Testament either. If Genesis were true, humans would have died off from in-breeding several generations after we were supposedly created. There were never any of Moses' plagues in Egypt, and there was never an exodus of slaves (the Egyptians were very good at keeping records). Noah's Ark was plagiarized from the Epic of Gilgamesh. And so on....

The only reason there are similarities between Christianity and other religions is because Christianity copied them (except for Islam, which was founded several centuries years after Chistianity).

Finally, the fact that scienctific explanations are constantly changing is science's strength, not it's weakness. If people never changed the way they think, we'd still be living in squalor, thinking that disease was spread by smell, and afraid that if we traveled too far we'd fall off the edge of the world.

That's all I have to say right now. I'm ashamed to have contributed to this guy's reply count.

 

[ArcWinter]

Well, in chronological order, first to last, ignoring the ones I have no idea about.

1. Paganism (objects, random spirits)
2. Pantheons (Egyptian, Norse, Sumerian, Greek)
3. Judaism (the first Abrahamic religion
4. Christianity (the second Abrahamic religion)
5. Islam (the third Abrahamic religion)

Paganism began when humans began to think "Wow, this world sucks, there must be more to it!" and made up random crap, worshiping spirits and objects.
Pantheons began when the spirits began to have domains such as the sun, the earth, natural growth. etc and had personalities and names.
Judaism began seemingly out of nowhere, but there are odd similarities between the sun and Yahweh, heaven being the sky and such, and was probably refined monotheistic paganism.
Christianity pretty much took Judaism and added a benevolent deity who had a son (Jesus)through adultery who was also himself somehow. Around here, the drugs that the pagans were taking seemed to return to circulation.
Islam supposedly began when another prophet came after Jesus, at first preaching peace then took some of those pagan Jesus drugs and started to wage war hypocritically. Then all these legends came up and traditions and such (much like Christianity, centered around Muhammad however) and it was crazy, man.

In conclusion, religion began when depressed civilizations took craploads of hallucinogens.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Tell me then, what reason is there to believe in God(s)?

 

[ArcWinter]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

"As an atheist"? Well sir, way to label groups of people. As an atheist myself, I take offense to that. Normally I would be ridiculed for hours regarding those last two sentences, but as a hypocrite, I know I do not have to follow my own advice!

No but seriously I am enraged you used that sentence fragment that way

 

[Legion]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Tell me then, what reason is there to believe in God(s)?

The honest belief that there is more to life than what we know for a fact should be the obvious one.


The knowledge that we still have no idea why life exists or even managed to exist. Science can prove/disprove many things but nobody can say with certainty how life began because humans didn't exist when it happened. Unlike evolution and gravity we have no real way of testing it or any idea of how to.

Why humans have free thought. It doesn't make evolutionary sense for a being to develop the intelligence to call it's own existence into question. Although evolution makes sense to a degree, there are many factors it can't explain (note: I am not saying evolution doesn't exist, rather that there is more to the way life works, it is not the only theory) especially as so many species act in ways that do not make sense from an evolutionary perspective.

You are also making the mistake again that I pointed out in my first post, in that you are showing your ignorance of religion, not all religions believe in a God.

While I personally do not believe in Heaven or Hell in the Christian/Jewish/Muslim sense I am not so arrogant to claim it is a "false promise" because I have absolutely no evidence to say otherwise. To my knowledge I have never died, so any claim to know the "truth" is nothing more than stupidity and arrogance.

"As an atheist"? Well sir, way to label groups of people. As an atheist myself, I take offense to that. Normally I would be ridiculed for hours regarding those last two sentences, but as a hypocrite, I know I do not have to follow my own advice!

No but seriously I am enraged you used that sentence fragment that way

I did not mean it offensively and honestly cannot see how it was construed that way.

I was pointing out that as a person who believes there is no God, he had no right to try and claim to know why somebody does when it's to say they are simply deluded.

I consider that far more offensive than what I put.

 

[Indiscrimi]

Religion is what people use to explain the unknown because they're scared of not knowing. All religion is just conjured up out of thin air and people believe it because it makes them feel like life isn't over at death because they're too afraid to face their own mortality. I would choose to face a unsettling truth rather than submit myself to a false promise.

That is ridiculously ignorant and you are clearly basing that statement on Christianity/Judaism/Islam.

There are many reasons for being religious, as an atheist you have no place telling people why they may or not believe something.

As much as I dislike discussing my personal views; I am an agnostic before you start telling me I am deluded for believing in whatever you assumed I did after reading the last 2 sentences.

Well, as an atheist, I think we're are the best qualified to assess the pros and cons of religion, seeing as we aren't biased.

Atheists aren't necessarilly anti-religion, we just don't believe that there is any sort of higher power.

But speaking as someone who has studied religion, I can safely say that it is a harmful influence. Even Eastern religions. Did you know that Buddhists believe that non-Buddhists aren't technically human? That makes it okay to kill us. More-over, Buddhists believe that there will be a worldwide holy war, and at the end of it, Buddhists will rule the world.

All religions are the same: Scare people into following you, promise them something amazing that you will never actually have to deliver, and assure them that they're better than everyone else. Rinse and repeat. That's it.